SEO Quick-Tip: Respect the Robots, but Write for People First.

By Will Mallett | May 8, 2013

As you've probably figured out, we're big advocates of good content on home performance websites. Whether you're working on your blog, or on your services pages, or your About Us page, or adding fresh content to any other page on your site, it's imperative to have good content to ensure that your site performs as well as it can so that you can get to work fixing more buildings.

But what makes good content?

It should be useful to visitors

It should convey your expertise and professionalism

It should be written with some thought given to SEO

SEO & Keywords in Home Performance

Getting your website to show up in search engines is very important if you want to acquire new customers and keep busy. And using appropriate home performance related keywords and keyword variations is good for SEO and a great think to keep in mind when creating new content on your site.

But it's also important to not be a slave to keywords or SEO in general: after all, what Google is looking for at the end of the day is good, useful content that will be useful to people who are using their search engine. Tricks like keyword-stuffing are easily sniffed out, so it's always best to use natural language that reads easily.

Writing for Humans First

Another reason to avoid overdoing it when keywording your content is the simple reason that it's meant for humans. While the search engine robots will "read" your content to figure out what it's all about and what they should do with it, humans are your target audience. Writing content that reads awkwardly is a good way to send those humans back to Google to find another article that's more useful.

So, write for humans first and you'll be sure to:

Make your content more interesting for readers.

Make your content more likely to gain traction in social media, etc.

Keep readers reading until the end

Increase conversion

Get more business

An example of human-friendly content:

"Our company offers a wide range of energy efficiency services for homeowners and building owners throughout the Boston metro region. If you're interested in lowering utility bills while improving home comfort, contact us to schedule a home energy audit today."